Oh, the snow has made me so lazy. It's snowed about five times in the past week or so, so mornings have meant rolling out of bed only to face a shovel and some sometimes back-breaking work. At least it's (kind of, maybe) exercise.

I'll be watching the Grammy Awards tonight. I usually get really excited about the Grammys, but for some reason, I completely forgot that it was coming up. That doesn't mean I'm not excited about it now!

I made some sweet potato fries to munch on while watching, forgetting entirely that according to Chinese superstition, you're not supposed to use knives, scissors or any sharp tools on Chinese New Year day. It's unlucky and means that you are cutting yourself off from any good luck the new year might've brought you. Sigh.

You probably can figure out how to make sweet potato fries, but here's what I did anyway ...

Baked Sweet Potato Fries

Ingredients
Sweet potatoes (one medium-sized sweet potato makes about one medium-sized serving of fries, by fast food standards)
Olive oil
Cornstarch
Ground pepper
Sea salt
Herbs and spices for seasoning
A metal spatula

Instructions
Preheat the oven to 450 degrees Fahrenheit. Peel sweet potatoes and slice them to your desired width and length.

For crispier fries, sprinkle about a tablespoon of cornstarch over the sweet potato strips and toss until the cornstarch is evenly spread.

Pour olive oil over the strips, depending on how much oil you think is necessary to coat the fries, and toss again to ensure that each piece is coated. Sprinkle salt, pepper and other herbs and spices over the fries and toss again.

Spread the strips out on a cookie sheet (I did not find that I needed a non-stick sheet or any parchment paper, since the sweet potato strips are coated with oil), making sure that none of the strips touch. You should have one even layer of sweet potato strips.

Place in oven for 10 minutes, then remove and turn each strip over. A metal spatula is especially handy for this task. Return to oven and bake for another 5 to 15 minutes, depending on how thickly you've cut the sweet potato strips.



After I made this, I made a spicy ketchup for the fries, mixing a combination of ketchup, mesquite barbecue sauce, pepper spices and adobo seasoning. I think there are endless combinations for sweet potato fries, just as there are with regular fries. If you prefer your sweet potato fries sweet, you could even try the sweet potato fries with cinnamon sugar instead of salt and pepper. This is a relatively healthy snack, easy, and so very tasty.